


A Set of Instructions for Love and Grief

by notfromcold



Series: Inherited a Fight [2]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Bodhi Rook Backstory, Bonding over books, Cassian Andor Backstory, Child Abuse, Galactic Civil War, Implied/Referenced Minor Character Death, Intergenerational Trauma, M/M, Mission Fic, QT-9 service droids, biscuit barron, book worms, cassian andor has been fighting since he was six years old, child endangerment, injuries, mention of medical procedures, resistance can take many forms, sometimes survival is itself resistance, sort of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-18
Updated: 2017-07-18
Packaged: 2018-12-03 16:37:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11536173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notfromcold/pseuds/notfromcold
Summary: Cassian and Bodhi bond over a shared love of books and language. Bodhi struggles to embrace his talent amid his grief. The Rebellion deals with wordplay, journalism, and worse. The Empire has no answer to alliteration.





	1. Introduction

**Author's Note:**

> CW: First off, the important thing. This fic contains depictions of PTSD and child abuse/children being put into dangerous situations. There is also discussion of the fact that Scarif was assumed to be a suicide mission (Cassian is grateful and relieved, but a bit surprised, to be alive). If you need a more detailed content description please feel free to message me.
> 
> Thank you's:  
> This fic owes a lot to the Cassian/Bodhi fan community on Tumblr. It also owes a lot to the fics already in existence in which Bodhi Rook is imagined as a poet. The idea of Bodhi as a poet just wouldn't let me alone. I haven't read those fics yet because I didn't want to be too influenced, but I'm going to run off and read them as soon as I finish with this story! I encourage you to run off and read them now!

Cassian Andor learned to hide early in life. He had always been small and there were lots of places on Fest for a small child to hide.

But sometimes hiding wasn't enough so he learned to escape. And sometimes physical escape was impossible, so Cassian Andor learned to read. And he learned to daydream. And he learned to hope.

He started spying on the Empire at the age of six, directed by his mother. His mother called it an empire even then. Even while it still called itself a republic.

At seven years old, he was caught.

His mother's face was hard as she denied involvement in the spying. “I'm glad you caught him. I hope he's learned his lesson.”

She sent him books during the month he spent in juvie.

He got sick, so sick they released him early. But he didn't have the energy to be relieved. Everything hurt. His mother held him all night long as he shook with chills and fever, whispering

“Cassian, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. There was no other way. They would have taken us both. I'm so sorry. You were so brave.”

_No other way_. It wasn't till much later that he wondered: what about the choice she made to involve him in the first place? But perhaps even that was not really a choice. What sort of childhood would he have had if she taught him only obedience?

 

\--

 

Bodhi Rook's little sister was a poet. She was bright and kind like sunlight reflected in water on a hot day. Her verses were so good they made her second grade teacher cry.

When Bodhi joined the Empire's cargo pilot program, he did it for his sick mother and he did it for her, his little sister whose verses made people remember the things that were best in themselves.

Bodhi wrote poetry, too, scribbling in his journal on the long runs between Jedha and Eadu. But poetry could never seem to reflect how love spilled on and on, like the stars spilled on and on beyond the windows of his shuttle. Love for his family, for his sister who was born when he was five. He'd held her during her first night alive, filled with awe when he realized that in all her young life she had not yet seen the stars.

“Someday soon I'll show you the stars, little one,” he'd whispered to her.

Sometimes, when he doubted the choices that made him a pilot, he told himself that she was a better poet than him. He told himself that she would be the poet and she would change the world. He knew this was a lie. There was no such thing as _better_ when it came to poetry - just a torrent of words and love and hope in the two of them. But sometimes he needed that lie to keep his hands on the controls of his ship, to keep him flying for the Empire. For his family.

She was safe at university when Bodhi defected. Or so he'd thought. He learned later that she'd traveled home for an unscheduled break. She was counted among the missing of Jedha. Not among the dead. No one could be sure if her ship had landed on Jedha before the Death Star appeared in its atmosphere. All they knew was that she never returned to school.

Bodhi thought the grief might stop him from writing (a part of him hoped it would). But the opposite happened – he wrote more. Words were his tie to his missing sister, to his mother, to his city, to his hurting and scattered people.

He wasn't sure what to do with all of these words.


	2. Cassian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cassian wakes up to deal with a crisis and finds himself having a conversation.
> 
> EDIT: I read an incredible meta post on Tumblr a while ago about Cassian's motivations for going to Scarif. And it really inspired what I wrote here. Now, of course, I can't find it to link to it. But thank you to the person who wrote it. If I do manage to find it, I will definitely include a link.

 

2 am on Hoth. All ice and starlight.

It was dark in Cassian's room, dark and cold. Under a thermal blanket, Cassian was half asleep but dreaming. A stream of disjointed memories:

_It was cold. He could see his breath. He was six years old and his mother pulled a sweater over his head, whispering “Don't get caught!”_

_The thought of getting caught made Cassian feel sick. He swallowed. His mother shivered and pulled her own sweater tighter in the half light of the kitchen. Dust floated into radiance._

“ _Don't let them catch you.”_

_And then he was seven and …._

_And then he was twenty-six on the Ring of Kafrene. Tivik's body made no sound as it dropped to the ground in front of him._

_No other way …_

Cassian's comm buzzed and he startled fully awake, backhanding the wall hard as he did so. He groaned and fumbled around for the comm, hands still shaky from dreaming. Not even one minute awake and already nursing bruised knuckles. That had to be some kind of record.

He located the comm by knocking it off the bed and onto the floor. He swore. Picked it up. The message was from General Draven <<Command in 5. Brought caf>>

Adrenaline spiked low in his gut. Something was up. He ran a hand through his hair. It was as damp with sweat as the sheets he'd been sleeping in. Gross. And not ideal on fucking Hoth.

Halfway through pulling on his shirt, Cassian started laughing at the idea of asking General Draven whether the caf was his reward for breaking a record by injuring himself within seconds of waking up.

Not that he'd actually ask, of course.

 _You need more sleep, Andor_ , he chided himself.

_Yeah, well, I'm not going to get it, so this adrenaline will have to suffice._

\--

General Draven was bent over one of the few lit monitors in the darkened command center. He looked up as Cassian entered then nodded to a cup of caf on the table.

Cassian scrubbed a hand over his face. “General. What's happening?”

Draven's mouth turned down at the corners. “We've reached a crisis point with the Biscuit Barron Boycott.”

Cassian blinked. “Am I still asleep?”

“I wish you were still asleep. I wish I was still asleep, too. We should all have the opportunity to be still asleep and unbothered by this fucking boycott.”

Cassian huffed out a laugh. “Won't fucking quit, huh?”

“Not in the fucking slightest. I'm impressed. It's a clusterfuck but I'm impressed. We don't have much on the ground intel. Just Imperial chatter and they're as nonplussed as we are. Getting concerned for our contacts on Pasher which is why I called you in.”

“Mm.”

“Might need you to go in. Wait and see mode now.”

“Understood.” Cassian dropped into a seat across from the General. It was going to be a long night.

The Biscuit Barron Boycott was…oh, Force. Well, it was _originally_ a joke. Biscuit Barron was _the_ chain restaurant. There was one in almost every spaceport, offering the exact same food at the exact same prices. The food was bad, but it was comfortingly predictable. If you ordered a Bantha Breakfast Biscuit with blue sauce, you knew what you were getting.

The problem? It was owned by the House of Tagge. As in the family of Imperial Admiral Tagge.

So someone in the Rebellion started a joke: hey, you know what we should try next? A boycott. How about a Biscuit Barron Boycott? It's got alliteration, man. We're sure to win. The Empire has no answer to alliteration. This was darkly funny to nearly everyone. Trust a fighting force that was always one misstep away from annihilation to make jokes about how their opponent had no answer to alliteration.

And then, _then_ , someone started a fucking Biscuit Barron Boycott. As far as intelligence could figure, the boycott leaders had no connection to the Rebellion. They appeared to have come to the idea independently. Admiral Akbar said something about a “Zeitgeist”.

Judging from Imperial chatter, the Empire's answer to alliteration was “ignore it” probably soon to be followed by “violent repression”. And Cassian's contacts on Pasher were right in the middle of it. So the rest of Cassian's night was going to be spent monitoring that chatter.

It could be worse. Rebel slicers had developed algorithms to scan for key words and phrases. Monitoring them was mostly just boring. A long night. Occasionally talking to stay awake. It was better than nightmares, anyway. And maybe when Cassian got a chance to sleep again he could sleep without dreaming.

But … the General was giving Cassian an awfully _intent_ look. Cassian wondered if maybe the nightmares showed in his face.

“It's been a few months since Scarif. How are you holding up?” Draven sounded too studiously uninterested to be truly uninterested.

How was Cassian holding up? Cassian was _adjusting_.

He'd expected to die on Scarif. Hadn't sought death, but he'd known the odds (Kay told him exactly what they were while loudly insisting that he be allowed to join – _incorrigible piece of scrap metal_ that he was).

Then _a_ _fter_ , on the ship back from Scarif, Cassian had lain on the floor and tried not to scream as the medics worked over him (at least, he'd tried not to scream too loudly – it was the little dignities that meant so much). He'd wondered if he would survive his injuries. And if he _did_ survive he'd wondered if he would feel like a ghost. Would the world seem less real now that he'd almost left it? Would his presence feel incorrect?

How was Cassian holding up? Well, he didn't feel like a ghost. What did it feel like to almost die? It felt like living. And living felt like a gift. And that was _worse_ , more terrifying, than feeling like a ghost. Because suddenly there were _peopl_ _e like Bodhi Rook_ …

Cassian shrugged “I'm holding up all right. Thanks for the caf.”

“Mm. Yeah. Well, I pulled you out of bed.”

“I'll get it next time.”

“You better.”

There were rebels saying that Cassian went to Scarif for Jyn Erso. That was untrue. Cassian didn't even really know Jyn. They were not friends. They were comrades and that was different, both more intense and less personal than friendship. Their interactions were a mixture of anger, adrenaline, shared experience, and a sort of painful empathy that Cassian sometimes wished he could shut off. Jyn had called Cassian a stormtrooper and he'd extended his hand to her anyway because extending his hand was what he did. He'd extended his hand remembering how his mother seemed to carry the entire revolution on her back sometimes, mediating grievances and giving of herself even to people who hurt her.

Cassian was hurt, but he'd looked at Jyn and seen the sad eyes of a former child soldier pressed into service by the Rebellion. And so he'd fought at her side. Because that was how the Rebellion moved forward. Each person was obliged to carry a piece of it on their back.

It wasn't Jyn.

Cassian had gone to Scarif for the Rebellion. But if there was one person who'd pushed him to believe in the goodness of people, that person was Bodhi Rook.

“You and Rook are ….” Draven put down his caf and waved his hands around vaguely. He looked deeply embarrassed.

Cassian felt his eyebrows shoot up to his hairline. “Uh. We're … seeing each other.” There was no way of talking about this that didn't make Cassian feel like a middle-schooler. Except that he hadn't dated in middle-school. So. Correction: there was no way of talking about this that didn't make Cassian feel like a middle-schooler discussing something that kids cooler than him were doing with a vocabulary he barely knew his way around.

Draven picked up his mug again, fidgeting with it. “You give a lot to the Rebellion, Major,” he managed at last. “I've spent a lot of time out in the field. You get so that silence is like a second skin. Keeping secrets. Poker face. Working from a very non-emotional place in your head. Or, I get like that anyway. What I mean is … it can get hard trying suddenly to straddle that line. Pulling people close in one part of your life while keeping that other part of you intact for when you need it.”

Cassian found himself nodding. His kuckles hurt. A tension headache was beginning at the base of his jaw.

“I'm not very good at,” Draven gestured somewhat helplessly, “ _this_ – talking, uh, I'm not much of a talker. But if you ever … actually, if you start having trouble in the field, come see me. That's an order. But if it's more,” he made the vague gesture again, “I'm around.”

“Thank you, General.”

“It won't make you worse as a spy to have friends, Major. Might make you different. You might have to change some things. But it won't make you worse.”

Cassian nodded again, swallowing the sudden lump in his throat, and flicked his gaze back to the monitors. He wanted to reply but – a sudden beeping filled the command center making both men jump. Highlighted on the monitors was one phrase pulled by the algorithms from the Imperial chatter “suppress Pasher protests with all necessary force.”

 _Fuck_.


End file.
